A Study in Human Nature
by Fleur Princesse
Summary: "A Study in Pink" from the POV of Sherlock and a slightly younger, slightly different John Watson, one who seems not-so-shocked at Sherlock's deductions and isn't easily surprised. Neither one of them seems to recognize what they feel almost immediately for the other. Experimental narrative trying to capture the chaotic mindset of Sherlock. Pre-slash S/J. Rated T to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

Hello all! So I haven't written anything in a while but the Sherlock bug bit me and I just couldn't help myself. I hope you all like it!

Summary: "A Study in Pink" told in three parts from the POV of both John and Sherlock. Features the Sherlock we all know and love with a slightly younger John Watson who isn't so hesitant or confused. Think of him as a good mix between Freeman's Watson and Jude Law's Watson, with a bit of my own imagination thrown in. Pre-slash S/J. This story mainly started out as a way for me to experiment with a narrative form that captures Sherlock's mind. But then John wanted some time to himself as well and I thought, why not just tackle the first episode with a bit of my own stuff thrown in.

SPECIAL THANKS to Ariane DeVere for her absolutely invaluable transcript of "A Study in Pink." Seriously. Go and read her transcripts, they are amazing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. I'm like Moriarty. I just want to have a little fun with my favorite boys.

If you take the time to read I would love to know what you think! Please leave me a review. This narrative form is very different for me and is mostly experimental. I would love suggestions or praise, either one ;)

**A Study in Human Nature**

**Pt. 1**

Molly's footsteps faded, moving faster than the beating of his heart (61 bpm), and he was left in cool silence in the lab. Stop. Rewind. _Delete_. Information superfluous. Adjust microscope, refresh, proceed from last viable starting point.

Sherlock bent his neck and prepared the slide carefully. Don't touch the glass. Just cleaned.

"Careful," he mouthed, the word leaving lips softer than a whisper, just an exhalation of breath with a suggestion attached.

His ears caught sound, his head tilted, and footsteps (not Molly's) approached the door to the lab. Two people – men. Two men. One heavy slow gait (possibly Mike Stamford), and one slow, lighter, yet – wrong, somehow – a limp? Yes, there was the faint subtle tapping. Cane. Mike Stamford plus guest. Sherlock's lips twitched as he moved the slide carefully toward the microscope.

Seconds later, the door to the lab opened. Stamford came into view first but his guest was more important. Sherlock spared him a glance. Short (172 centimeters), blond (dirty blond, military cut), slender, compact body (definitely military, recent weight loss (injury related) in addition to limp (psychosomatic)), young (between twenty-five and thirty – twenty-eight?), acquainted with the lab (trained as a doctor), tan skin, vacant eyes (blue?brown?green? Dark.). The eyes gave Sherlock pause. They were perfectly and completely vacant. For just a moment Sherlock stared into those eyes. And could read nothing. The man's face, just as slender as the rest of him, was quite expressive. There were faint lines around his eyes and mouth (he was happy once) that told Sherlock this man used to laugh, that his eyes had feeling at one point.

"Can I borrow your phone, Mike?" Sherlock asked, looking away from the young soldier and toward Stamford. "Mine has no signal."

"What's wrong with the landline?" asked Mike, as Sherlock knew he would.

"I prefer to text."

Mike glanced around. "Left it in my coat, sorry."

Sherlock shrugged.

Mike's companion shifted slightly and dug in his own coat pocket. "Here," he said, removing a mobile (voice: smooth, light, slightly incredulous), "use mine."

Sherlock looked up. "Oh. Thank you." He stood to take the mobile and at that moment the soldier's eyes slid toward Mike's pocket. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

Sherlock's interest spiked. He had known all along that Mike's phone was in his trouser pocket. But for this man to know it, and then to offer his own anyway… that was interesting.

"It's an old friend of mine, John Watson," said Mike fondly, gesturing.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock asked as he took the phone and fired off a text to Lestrade.

John Watson didn't even hesitate. "Afghanistan," he said quietly.

Molly Hooper entered the lab. Sherlock looked away from John Watson. "Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you." He noted something about her lack of lipstick, but his attention wavered and fell back to John. "How do you feel about the violin?"

John's head tilted slightly. "Violin music helps me relax."

Sherlock stared at him. "Sometimes I don't speak for days on end. Would that bother you?"

There it was again. That slight tug of lips. "Why? Is this the worst of you? Sounds pretty good for a potential flatmate."

Sherlock felt his own lips twitch and hastily suppressed a smile. "Let me guess. You have nightmares?"

John studied him. "And you don't sleep."

They both looked at Mike. "What, did you tell him about me?" they asked simultaneously.

Stamford glanced between them and smiled smugly. "Not a word."

Sherlock breathed an almost non-existent laugh and pulled on his greatcoat. He wrapped his blue scarf around his neck and looked at John. "I've got my eye on a nice little place in London. Together we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening – seven o'clock."

John nodded. "I don't know the address. Or you name."

Sherlock moved toward the door. At the last moment he turned around and winked at John. "The name's Sherlock Holmes. And the address is two two one B Baker Street."

The last thing he saw before leaving the lab was a spark of _something _in those vacant eyes.

SH – SH – SH

John approached the door of 221B Baker Street slowly. As he lifted his hand to the knocker, a cab pulled up to the kerb alongside him and Sherlock Holmes stepped out.

"Hello," said the scientist as he moved up to join John.

In his mind, John thought of Sherlock Holmes as a scientist – he had looked him up, found his website, Science of Deduction – though he thought the man had other employment as well.

John nodded. "Mr. Holmes."

"Sherlock, please," said Holmes, his voice low and smooth, and extended his hand.

John shook it. Sherlock's hand was cool and thin, with long fingers, and a grip that conveyed strength and certainty. If Sherlock spent his time deducing everything around him based on observations, John's time in the Army had taught him to deduce a man's character by his handshake. Sherlock wasn't nervous about their meeting. Lack of sweat on his palm and the cool temperature of his skin told John that Sherlock perceived himself to be very much in control.

"This looks like a prime spot," remarked John, dropping his hand. "Bit expensive."

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, is giving me a special deal. Owes me a favor. A few years back, her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out."

John felt his eyebrows go up. "You stopped him being executed?"

Sherlock's lips twitched. "No, I ensured it."

While John was deciding whether to be surprised – and adding detective/consultant to his list of jobs defining Sherlock – the door to 221 swung open. An elderly woman stepped out and opened her arms wide.

"Sherlock, hello," she said, and John watched in slight amazement as Sherlock actually bent marginally down to hug her.

"Mrs. Hudson," he said upon rising, "Doctor John Watson."

There went John's eyebrows again. He hadn't mentioned to Sherlock that he was a doctor. But then he remembered deduction and didn't comment. "How do?" he said to Mrs. Hudson instead.

They moved into the flat and up the stairs. John took them slowly but steadily upward, and did not think about the time not so long ago when he had been able to take stairs three at a time. Sherlock pushed the door open at the top, glanced at him, and said, "It's psychosomatic, you know, your limp."

John tried for a bland smile and simply followed him into the flat. It was… nice. He took everything in slowly, and felt himself grinning. The walls were relatively awful and none of the furniture matched, there were boxes and papers and books and stacks of things everywhere, the kitchen looked like a laboratory and there was a skull on the mantelpiece. But it felt like home.

"This is nice," said John aloud.

Next to him, Sherlock nodded. "Yes, I thought so. My thoughts precisely. So I went on ahead and moved in."

John's facial muscles were beginning to ache with the amount of smiling he had done in just the past five minutes.

"There's a second bedroom upstairs, if you'll be needing two," said Mrs. Hudson politely as she picked up a cup and saucer from the table in front of the sofa.

John thought of all the things he could say to that. But he once again settled for nodding. "Yes, please."

She smiled and nodded and mumbled something about "all sorts" and moved into the kitchen. "Sherlock," she clucked, and began tidying. "The mess you've made."

John gestured toward the mantle. "That's a skull."

"Friend of mine," Sherlock said, and then tilted his head. "Well, when I say "friend," what I mean is…"

Something a lot like laughter bubbled up out of John's throat before he could subdue it, and Sherlock glanced sidelong at him. John moved to an armchair and sat down carefully. He studied Sherlock for a moment, and then decided to be frank. "I looked you up on the internet last night."

Sherlock turned toward him. "Oh? What did you think?"

"The Science of Deduction. Very impressive."

"You think so?"

John nodded. "What have you deduced about me?"

Sherlock brought his fingertips together under his chin as he looked at John. "I know you're an Army Doctor invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got an older brother but you won't go to him for help because you disapprove of him – possibly because he's an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And your therapist, rightly enough, thinks your limp is psychosomatic, as I've already pointed out."

John didn't say anything, but a question must have been in his eyes because Sherlock answered anyway.

"I can read your military career in your face and your leg and your brother's drinking habits in your mobile phone."

John had to stop his mouth from falling open. "How?"

But Sherlock just smiled secretively and didn't respond.

Mrs. Hudson shuffled back in and mentioned the suicides. John's ears pricked and he glanced at Sherlock when Mrs. Hudson said that three identical suicides seemed to be right up Sherlock's street.

But Sherlock was looking out the window. "Four."

As John watched him, the subtle glow of flashing police lights illuminated his face. For just an instant, his face appeared inhuman.

"There's been a fourth," he said, in his deep quiet baritone. "And there's something different this time."

John cocked his head to one side. "A fourth?"

But just at that moment footsteps were heard on the stairs and a man came through the door to 221B, his silver hair a mess and his deep eyes anxious. He and Sherlock exchanged a rapid fire conversation that John could barely follow, though he understood the bit about a fourth suicide and Scotland Yard requesting Sherlock's help.

"Who's on forensics?"

"It's Anderson."

"Anderson won't work with me."

"Well, he won't be your assistant."

"I need an assistant."

John decided to ignore the way Sherlock's eyes flickered toward him as he said that, but after another moment, and a quick curious glance at himself and Mrs. Hudson, the silver-haired man left and Sherlock turned his full attention on John.

"I need an assistant," he said again, slowly.

John got to his feet but didn't say anything.

"You're a doctor," said Sherlock in that considering drawl. "In fact you're an Army Doctor."

"Yes," said John, nodding.

Sherlock's eyes glinted eerily as he peered at John. "Any good?"

For the first time in a long time, John felt something smooth and warm and smug uncoiling in his stomach. "_Very _good."

"Seen a lot of injuries, then; violent deaths."

"Mmm, yes."

"Bit of trouble too, I bet."

"Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much."

"Want to see some more?"

The heat in John's belly exploded outward, so forcefully he was surprised he didn't pitch forwards. "Oh _God_, yes."

And then right before his eyes this tall, skinny, barely controlled force of a man clenched his fist and leaped into the air. "Brilliant! Yes!" he shouted. "Ah, four serial suicides, and now a note. Oh, it's Christmas."

He grabbed his coat from the stand and wrapped his scarf around his neck. "Mrs. Hudson, we'll be late. Might need some food."

Mrs. Hudson smiled fondly. "I'm your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper."

"Something cold will do," said Sherlock, as if she hadn't even spoken. He looked at John, who hadn't moved. "Hurry, John!"

And just like that John sprang into action. He was still wearing his own coat, so didn't bother with anything but moving steadily to join Sherlock at the top of the stairs.

"Perhaps some tea tonight as well, Mrs. Hudson," added John over his shoulder. "And some biscuits too, if you've got them."

Mrs. Hudson's voice floated out of the kitchen, softly admonishing. "Not your housekeeper, dear!"

"JOHN!"

Sherlock had reached the bottom of the stairs and was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He stared up at John impatiently. As John began descending the stairs to meet his new flatmate – and colleague? – he hardly felt his limp.

SH-SH-SH

In the back of the taxi Sherlock stared at his mobile phone and knew that John had questions. He let the doctor ask them, and he answered, and in his usual precise manner he quickly outlined for John just how easy it was to discover someone's secrets. And as he spoke he took in John's expression and his body language and demeanor. He watched the astonishment shift to speculation and then shift again to disbelief and then one final time to a quirk of eyebrows and a tilt of the head and a bobbing of the Adam's apple that he couldn't quite decipher and he found himself just staring and staring at this man who was the first in almost _ever_ who had managed to keep Sherlock guessing about what an expression could possibly mean and he tried to understand the fine crinkles around those color-shifting eyes and the upturned corner of the thin lips and

"… amazing."

the wrinkle of the nose which must mean something and… what? Amazing? He stared at John.

"Do you think so?" he asked, and knew he wasn't quite successful at keeping the genuine curiosity out of his voice.

John smiled at him. "Of course it was. It was extraordinary; quite extraordinary."

Sherlock thought he should probably look away. It must be one of those social customs that eye contact be maintained for only a certain period of time. He was sure he had prolonged the staring for quite long enough. But there was just something about John Watson.

"That's not what people usually say," remarked Sherlock finally.

"What do they usually say?" inquired John.

"Piss off."

And John's slight breathless laugh was probably his imagination. Except that he knew it wasn't. Because no one had ever said that to him before. No one. He felt himself smiling tentatively, but he turned his face toward the window and stared at the streets and the signs and the traffic and the colors until his eyes swam and fell shut, and he mapped each turn and bump and sound behind the blackness of his closed lids and counted down to the second the time it took them to arrive at Lauriston Gardens. And when the car stopped he leaped out and John followed and somehow, this time, it felt different. More exciting. Because someone was walking next to him who might actually be impressed. They approached the police tape and Sherlock began to feel the pre-case numbness, starting in his toes and working upwards, a sensation that almost let him leave his body, as if he was nothing more than his mind in that moment and his flesh and bones carried him, weightless, toward that place where his mind reigned supreme.

But he was still aware of John next to him and couldn't help but ask, "Did I get anything wrong?"

But of course he didn't. John confirmed his deductions and Sherlock was just in the middle of congratulating himself when John managed to once more surprise him.

"And," said John with a little pause, "Harry's short for Harriet."

Sherlock was sure that for one second his entire body stopped functioning. He was aware only that he stopped walking when John turned to look at him. "Harry's your sister."

John nodded and continued on. "So, how am I meant to be assisting you?"

Sherlock's body came back to life. "_Sister!_"

"Because, you know," John kept on, "I don't think you actually need my help."

Sherlock shook his head. "Nonsense, John. I need an assistant. You happen to be a highly trained and qualified doctor who is now conveniently my flatmate. It's a perfect arrangement."

They reached the police tape. Sally Donovan was there, and she seemed completely unwilling to let either Sherlock or John pass.

"Hello, freak," she snapped, a slight wicked light in her eyes that had been there since the first time they'd met and still had no effect on Sherlock at all.

"I'm here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade," said Sherlock smoothly, ignoring her barb.

"Why?"

Sherlock bit back a sigh. "I was invited."

"Why?"

This time he could not hold back the dripping sarcasm. "I think he wants me to take a look."

Donovan sneered at him and lifted the tape. "Well, you know what I think, don't you?"

Sherlock ducked under and caught a whiff of men's deodorant and didn't even have to see the dust on her knees to know she hadn't been home last night. It was so easy he felt the numbness slipping away, his weight coming back, boredom and chaos closing in on him once more.

"Always, Sally."

"Who's this, then?"

Sherlock looked around. "Colleague of mine, Doctor Watson." He quickly made the introductions.

Sally looked gob smacked. "A colleague. How do you get a colleague?" She addressed the next question directly to John. "What, did he follow you home?"

But the John Watson that Sherlock had glimpsed in 221B and in the taxi cab had disappeared, and the John Watson from yesterday morning at Bart's was back in place. He stood like a soldier; deceptively loose limbed and with those vacant, expressionless eyes.

"Actually," John murmured, "I followed him home."

Sally looked between the two of them with a slightly horrified expression, and Sherlock could read the words of her thoughts as if they were scrolling across her face in bold print _Oh, God now there's two of them _it was just too easy and he raised the tape for John and said lowly, "After you, doctor." And he made sure to insult both Anderson and Donovan at least three more times as they moved toward the crime scene and it actually bordered on tedious but the look on John's face was worth it and then they were inside and Sherlock could practically smell the mystery and he almost didn't wait for anyone before heading up the stairs.

But Lestrade wanted to know who John was.

"He's with me," Sherlock said, as if that should be enough even though he had to say it one more time.

But that once more was enough. And Lestrade didn't ask again.

SH-SH-SH

John put his mental blinders on when they started climbing the stairs. He took a deep breath and retreated to that place in his mind that was full of sand and sun and _Move, soldier, now!_ He climbed the stairs. He managed it better than he thought he would. But then they made it to the actual crime scene and though he had seen more than his fair share of violence and death and destruction, there was something completely disarming about the dead woman on the floor. Because she was wearing pink. Because she had blond hair and manicured nails and was wearing an absolutely garish shade of pink. Because she was a civilian.

He had seen civilians die. Of course he had. But those deaths always managed to reach a place inside him that he tried desperately to keep hidden away. Because civilians weren't trained on how to die properly. Not that anyone really could be trained on how to die, but John sometimes thought that he had been. He and his comrades both. Civilians didn't know what to do when death came for them. They were never prepared. And it made John's heart hurt.

But Sherlock had asked him to come. And John had agreed. Because despite the death, the mystery and the danger and the thrill of the chase were what got him. And watching Sherlock move toward the body, so lightly his footsteps didn't even make a sound, pulled something from that primal, adrenaline packed space in John's mind that had his focus so narrowed he actually saw spots for a moment.

It was like a dance. If examining a dead woman could be called dancing. It was as if the dead woman was leading Sherlock in an intricate waltz, and Sherlock was following brilliantly, taking every turn, every step, every move that the lady in pink placed before him. When he told DI Lestrade that he hadn't discovered much from the body, John knew he wasn't lying per se, he just wasn't willing to go into detail until pressed. This was part of the game for him. He was perfect in this place, using his mind, solving riddles and puzzles and figuring things out. This was where he was meant to be. But John was realizing that for almost everyone else, including DI Lestrade, Sherlock's presence was a constant reminder of their own inadequacy, and they suffered him to be there only reluctantly.

It took John a moment to realize that Sherlock was talking. He was explaining what he had discovered and it was more than slightly unfair that one man could have a mind like that. John had known some very intelligent people and was generally considered to be one himself, but he had never known anyone like Sherlock. Lestrade had called him in because he had known that Sherlock could discover in mere seconds what an entire police force couldn't even begin to see. And it was obvious.

"Sorry," said John suddenly, as Sherlock's last words caught up with his brain. "Obvious?"

It was as if hearing his voice alerted Sherlock to the fact that John was still in the room, because those ghostly sharp eyes were on his face and John felt his breath being stolen by the power of that gaze alone.

"Doctor Watson," said Sherlock, gesturing toward the body. "What do you think?"

John glanced at the woman. Jennifer Wilson, Lestrade had said. He looked back up at Sherlock. "I'm not a Medical Examiner, Sherlock. I don't typically work with corpses."

"Right," said Lestrade. "And I have a team, anyway. I'm breaking enough rules letting you in."

Sherlock didn't take his eyes off of John. "I won't work with anyone else."

John sighed and turned to look at Lestrade.

The Detective Inspector rolled his eyes and waved his hand in a way that spoke of suffering and acceptance. "Go ahead."

His leg was a bit stiff, but John managed to kneel next to the body and take her wrist to look at the skin and lean down to sniff at the hair by her face. Through wet strands of blond he could see dried and cracking foam around her pink lips. He looked up at Sherlock and slowly got to his feet.

"Asphyxiation," he said. "She passed out and choked on her own vomit. Could have been drugs or a seizure, but…"

Sherlock tilted his head. "But?"

John glanced between the Consulting Detective and the DI. "But," he continued, "I would say poison is more likely. She's got foam on her mouth and bloodshot eyes. She doesn't smell like alcohol and her skin shows no signs of habitual drug use. She's not a user. She took a small dose of something very concentrated that acted very quickly. Poison."

He definitely wasn't imagining Sherlock's smile, though the edge to it made John think he had just been used more to prove a point than to help out. But even that feeling beat days and days of sitting in his bedsit, alone, doing nothing because nothing, nothing ever happened to John Watson.

Sherlock was alive with the idea that they were dealing with a serial killer. Something about a missing case. He bolted from the room and down the stairs yelling at everyone he passed and by the time John made it down and took off his crinkly blue crime scene suit the Consulting Detective had disappeared.

"He does that, you know," said Sergeant Donovan. "Just takes off without telling anyone."

"Hmmm," said John. "Well, is he coming back?"

Donovan just raised an eyebrow.

"Right," said John. "Where can I find a cab?"

Donovan hesitated for the briefest of moments before lifting the police tape for him to pass under. "Try the main road."

"Thanks," said John. He ducked under the tape and made for the road.

"He's not your friend, you know!"

John turned around. Donovan looked angry. Her hands where on her hips.

"Sherlock Holmes," she clarified. "He's not your friend. He hasn't got any friends. So who are you?"

John thought about telling her that he was nobody. But he remembered Sherlock's eyes when he had said he wouldn't work with anyone but John.

"I'm his assistant," said John. "His colleague."

Donovan leveled him with a considering stare. "You know why he's here, don't you? He's not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime, the more he gets off. And you know what? One of these days it won't be enough. One of these days we'll be standing round a body and it'll be Sherlock Holmes that put it there."

John swallowed reflexively. "And why would he do that?"

Donovan smiled as if she'd been waiting for him to ask that question. "Because he's a psychopath. And psychopaths get bored." She laughed nastily. "One day he'll get bored of you, too. Better for you if you get away and stay away now."

John turned and walked away. He wondered briefly what had happened to make Sally Donovan hate Sherlock Holmes so much, but he figured it was a mixture of jealousy and unrequited attraction. It hardly mattered either way.

What did matter, however, was that John Watson was being followed. He knew it as soon as he reached the main road. And then phones started ringing. And the man he finally talked to didn't sound as frightening as some of the people John had spoken to in his life, so he got into the car with very little fuss, but with a plan to take out the girl and the driver, if need be, just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys! Thank you so much to my new followers! Thank you to Ainslily and ICanSeeYou-OO for your reviews! I really appreciate it. Also, thanks again to Ariane DeVere for her Sherlock transcripts.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Sherlock. I would patent Ben's cheekbones if I could ;)

Please enjoy! And review!

**A Study in Human Nature**

**Pt. 2**

John found out that the girl's name was Anthea. Or, at least, the name she was choosing to use was Anthea, for she told him in much the same offhand, careless way that a child would when divulging the identity of their imaginary friend.

"Any point in asking where I'm going?" John wondered aloud.

Anthea glanced sideways at him, an amused grin pulling the corners of her lips up. If it had been any other circumstance (i.e. – not getting abducted) he would have found her attractive. As it was, when she tossed him a light "None at all, John" in answer to his question, most of her allure vanished.

"Right," said John calmly. He tapped his fingers against his leg. He glanced at Anthea again.

"You have lovely eyes," he said, quietly, and for the first time that night she actually looked up, startled, and made eye contact with him. Before she could look away he continued with, "They remind me of my sister's." He tried to inflect all of the childhood warmth he had at one point felt for Harry into his voice.

Anthea stared at him as if no one had ever complimented her eyes before, and they really were quite lovely, though honestly a slightly different shade of blue than Harry's and definitely larger. But John smiled at her just as he would have smiled at Harry in their youth, a soft, joyful smile, and Anthea, quite clearly unaccustomed to having her prisoners smile and compliment her, returned the gesture tentatively. Her eyes went slightly glassy, as if she was remembering something from long ago, and John took his chance.

He looked down at her mobile phone, which had fallen slightly toward him in that single moment when Anthea's hands, distracted from their task, relaxed. It was a BlackBerry, newer model, but the screen was bright and facing him and he took just a moment to glance… and then his heart sort of jumped and deflated all at once.

Russian. Of course her phone would be programed in Russian.

Even if her phone were to fall into enemy hands (and it didn't feel at all strange to John that Anthea should have enemies, or even that he was now including himself in the People Who Are Anthea's Enemies category) they wouldn't be able to read it. Luckily for John, however, he had once performed a very complicated surgery on a Russian man who had been unable to utter even a single dot of English. His only traveling companion was his wife, who spoke even less than a single dot of English. John had stayed up all night teaching himself the Cyrillic alphabet so that he could at least try to communicate – albeit very slowly – with the man and his wife during recovery.

John could speak only a few words of Russian, most of them medical terms or body parts. He could read only a little more than he could speak. But he had stayed up all night learning the alphabet, and if there was one thing John had always liked about himself, it was his ability to function after an all-nighter while retaining the information he had been cramming for in the first place. Thank you, medical school.

By the time Anthea's eyes focused and she brought the BlackBerry back up to her nose, John thought he had something to work with.

"Thank you, John," she said softly, "but I'm still not telling where you're going."

John smiled easily and tapped on his leg some more. "That's quite alright," he informed her. "I know we're going to see Mycroft."

He hoped he had pronounced it correctly. He thought it must be a name, and not a place, and when Anthea's head swung around and pinned him with a stare that suddenly wasn't so amused or friendly, he thought he had gotten it right. A mere second later her face had relaxed, she smiled at him as if he'd told her a very funny joke, and simply went back to her phone. She was obviously trained very well. But John had managed to surprise her, and her (really quite lovely) eyes had given her away.

Neither of them said anything, but Anthea was texting very quickly on her phone, and when they pulled into the large empty warehouse, John got out of the car and limped toward the man leaning on the umbrella without any fear.

"Hello, Mycroft," said John easily as he approached.

The man who must be Mycroft smiled blandly and nodded, as if greeting an old friend. "John, please sit."

John didn't even look at the chair. "No, thank you."

"Very well," said Mycroft.

John looked around. "This is all very impressive," he declared, "very clever, but you could have just phoned me, Mycroft. You know… on my phone."

"When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence this place."

John chuckled, just the tiniest bit, because he'd only known Sherlock Holmes for somewhere around one day, but it was enough to know that this man was probably correct.

"You don't seem very afraid," stated Mycroft.

John looked at him squarely. "You don't seem very frightening."

Mycroft looked just the tiniest bit put out. His face took on an expression of decided exasperation, his shoulders rolled minutely forward, almost as if they wanted to slump, and his lower lip stuck out just a fraction. In one of those sudden burst of inspiration moments, John recognized all of those mannerisms, and knew, without a doubt, that Mycroft and Sherlock must be related. He suddenly felt much more at ease.

Mycroft, on the other hand, had to visibly pull himself back together just to glare lightly at John. "What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?"

"I don't have one," replied John pleasantly. "I barely know him." He had, of course, admitted to Sally Donovan that they were colleagues just a short time ago, but Mycroft didn't need to know that. Unless he knew already.

Mycroft tapped his umbrella against the ground impatiently and raised an eyebrow. "And yet, since yesterday you've moved in together and are now solving crimes. Might I expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?"

John didn't rise to the bait. "Why so interested, Mycroft?"

"Because I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having," said Mycroft. "And since you've known him for such a short time, I don't expect you to know yet that Sherlock Holmes does not have friends."

John tilted his head. "Right," he said. "Now I'm confused. Are you giving me the obligatory hurt-him-and-die speech? Or is this something else? Because all I'm getting so far is that both of you err on the side of dramatic."

Mycroft blinked. And then sighed noisily. "Good Lord," he grumbled. "Fine. I was going to offer you money to _inform _me of my baby brother's goings on, but I can see now that it will be entirely lost on you. So instead, let me offer you a bit of advice."

Brothers. Yes, John could see that. He settled his cane in front of himself and leaned on it with both hands, but just then his mobile emitted the soft cry of an alert. Without waiting for Mycroft's permission he pulled out his phone and opened his text to see,

_Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH_

Mycroft arched his neck. "Ah, you're being summoned."

John had to keep himself from rolling his eyes as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. "Right, so, advice?"

Mycroft nodded. "Ah, yes." He stopped and cleared his throat. "Most people blunder round this city, John, and all they see are streets and shops and cars. But when you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield."

John sniffed. "I've seen that already," he said, although that had been rather poetic.

"Yes," said Mycroft with that sort of hidden excitement that meant they had finally reached _the point _of… whatever all of this was. "I know."

John's phone made a noise. He pulled it out, ignoring Mycroft's tiny pout at being interrupted.

_If inconvenient, come anyway. SH_

"Are we done, then?" asked John.

Mycroft was the one to roll his eyes this time. "I'll advise you to note that the intermittent tremor in your left hand hasn't made an appearance at all since you've been here, Dr. Watson," said Mycroft. "I would think about what that means."

His phone again.

_Could be dangerous. SH_

"What do you mean?" asked John, as he slipped his phone away and looked at his hand curiously. It wasn't shaking at all. He hadn't noticed till now. When had it stopped shaking?

"Just that you're better suited for the battlefield than you think," answered Mycroft. "You haven't really left the war, after all. And it's time to pick a side, John." He tipped his head. "Do give my brother my regards. And tell him that it greatly reduces the fun of kidnappings when he gives away the surprise beforehand."

"Cheers," said John, and limped back to the car where Anthea was waiting.

"I need to stop off somewhere before Baker Street," he told her.

He was never going anywhere without his Browning ever again.

SH-SH-SH

Sherlock had his right hand pressed over the underside of his left forearm when he heard John knock at the door downstairs. He gasped lightly, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes, and then melted boneless into the cushions beneath him. John's footsteps came slowly up the stairs.

"What are you doing?" came John's voice a moment later.

Sherlock held up his arm. "Nicotine patch. Helps me think."

John's face was suddenly looming over him, blocking the view of the ceiling. "Is that three patches?"

"Hmmmm," Sherlock hummed. "It's a three-patch problem. Impossible to maintain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brainwork."

John's face left his field of vision and Sherlock was momentarily startled by the empty space left behind.

"Good news for breathing, I expect," said John's voice from a short distance away.

"Breathing's overrated," retorted Sherlock immediately.

For a moment the flat was quiet. Sherlock could hear his own heart in his ears and his arm throbbed lightly, a slight itch under his skin.

"Well?" asked John.

Sherlock's nose crinkled. "Hmmm?"

"You asked me to come," continued John. "I'm assuming it's important."

"Oh, yes," said Sherlock. "Could I borrow your phone?"

Silence.

Normally the silence would mean nothing to Sherlock. He would prefer it. But for some reason, this silence was loud and he did not like it at all and felt compelled to continue speaking.

"It's just," he said quietly, "I need to send a text. My number might be recognized since it's on the website and I tried shouting for Mrs. Hudson but she's downstairs and didn't hear me and I don't have anyone else to ask and I thought that perhaps –"

John's phone dropped lightly onto his chest and the last word left his mouth as a noisy exhalation and his fingers curled around the mobile and he glanced up at John, who was blocking his view of the ceiling again and had a strange half smile on his face.

"Is this about the case?"

Casecasecasecasecase yes the case yes "Her case," he murmured softly.

"Her case?" John repeated, a question at the end of his voice.

"Her case, yes, obviously," said Sherlock. "The murderer took her case. His first big mistake."

John just looked at him and said nothing.

"There's no other way. We'll have to risk it." He held out the phone. "John, I'd like you to send a text. There's a number on my desk."

"You brought me all the way round from the other side of London just to send a text?" asked John, and there was the soft, incredulous tone that he had first used in Bart's.

"Text, yes," said Sherlock. "The number on my desk."

There was a beat of silence before the phone disappeared from his hand, but John's footsteps moved toward the window instead of the desk, and Sherlock braced his feet against the arm of the couch and arched his neck back to peer at John upside down.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he watched John look down at the street from the window.

"I just met a friend of yours," John replied.

Friend?

"Friend?" asked Sherlock.

"Or, an enemy, rather."

"Oh," said Sherlock, relaxing. "Which one?"

"Your brother."

Sherlock sat up so quickly his head actually spun, and he took a moment to wonder about visual impairment and lack of oxygen to the brain and nicotine patches until he saw that John was looking at him with amusement and he felt something catch in his throat and when he spoke his voice came out lower and softer than he meant it to but he asked all the same.

"Did he offer you money to spy on me?"

"Not exactly."

Sherlock brought his hands together. "Tell me everything."

And John did. And Sherlock was absolutely, genuinely, one hundred percent surprised, because he had never expected that John could speak Russian – "I can't speak Russian, Sherlock, just a few words" – or that John could manage to startle Anthea – "She was good at hiding it" – or that John would speak to Mycroft like an old friend – "Honestly, what kind of name is Mycroft, anyway" – or that John would figure out they were brothers without being told – "It's all in the mannerisms" – or that John could actually get the upper hand over Mycroft – "What can I say, he underestimated me" – or that John would actually inadvertently convince Mycroft that Sherlock had somehow planned the whole ordeal in the first place and wasn't that just the funniest, most brilliant most astounding thing he'd heard all day? Maybe even all week? And Sherlock fell back into the couch and listened to John finish his story and felt a fierce spike of pleasure deep in his stomach that this man, this small endearing intelligent fascinating interesting surprising unassuming man had gotten the better of his brother and he actually laughed. He laughed out loud and it felt like it came from his toes and traveled through his body and got to his mouth and just burst out of him and it was unlike anything he'd ever experienced.

He stood up and grabbed John's face between his hands. "John," he breathed. "You brilliant, brilliant man."

John looked slightly bewildered. His eyes were very dark – due in part to his blown pupils – and distinctly not-vacant. Sherlock realized that he was holding John's face between his palms and that this might not actually be acceptable. But when his fingers slipped, just slightly and without John's notice, down to his neck, to the fluttering pulse that was evidence of his wildly beating heart, Sherlock couldn't quite bring himself to care.

"Did you want me to text someone?" asked John quietly, after an eternity had passed in silence.

"Yes," said Sherlock. He released John's face and stepped back. "There's a number. On my desk."

John picked up the number and entered it into his phone before looking at Sherlock expectantly.

"Text this message exactly," said Sherlock, closing his eyes. "'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Please come.'"

John began typing in the text.

"Have you done it?" asked Sherlock.

"Give me a moment," replied John. "There. Now, why did I just text Jennifer Wilson? Isn't she the dead lady? The pink one?

Sherlock didn't answer. He opened his eyes and looked toward the kitchen where he had earlier placed Jennifer Wilson's lost case. In one smooth motion he stepped up onto and over the coffee table to retrieve the case. John watched him with his mouth slightly open as he unzipped the pink monstrosity.

"That's her case," remarked John.

"Obviously," said Sherlock, and then looked around at the doctor. "I didn't kill her."

John blinked. "I never said you did. Do people usually assume that you're the murderer?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Now and then, yes."

John just looked at him before nodding. "Okay," he said, and turned and sat down in the armchair with the Union Jack pillow. "How did you find it?"

Sherlock fell gracefully into the armchair opposite John's and pulled his feet up under himself till he was perched in that purgatory between movement and rest. His hands came up, fingertip to fingertip, almost thoughtlessly. "It was all a matter of looking in the right place," he said and told John how he'd found the case.

"You got all of that just because you knew her case had to be pink?" asked John.

Sherlock lifted his chin. "Obviously it had to be pink. Did you not see her?"

John had the workings of a slow smile on his face. "Amazing," he murmured, and Sherlock felt that strange sensation in his chest again, the one that made his face feel abnormally warm and that gave him the strong urge to do something ridiculous like stutter and rub the back of his neck.

Luckily, John didn't seem to notice. He was staring at Jennifer Wilson's case and then at his phone and then at the case again.

"Sherlock," he said slowly. "Why did I just text Jennifer Wilson? Where is her mobile phone?"

"Ah, very good, John!" cried Sherlock happily. "Where is her phone indeed?"

John looked at him doubtfully. "She could have left it at home?"

But Sherlock was shaking his head before John had even finished speaking. "She has a string of lovers and she's careful about it. She would never leave her phone at home. Try again."

John appeared cross for a moment, but only before his eyebrows bunched together and he looked at Sherlock as if he'd gone slightly mad. "You think the murderer's got it. I just texted the murderer, didn't I?"

As if his words had summoned the murderer into being, John's phone began to ring. Sherlock knew by his face as he glanced at the Caller I.D. that the number was unknown.

"The balance of probability is the murderer has her phone," Sherlock told John. "Imagine receiving a text from the woman you'd killed a few hours after you'd killed her. Anyone else would just ignore a text like that. But the murderer would panic."

The phone stopped ringing. John finally looked up at Sherlock. His face was expressionless. "Have you talked to the police?"

Sherlock snapped the lid to the pink case closed and stood up. He moved to retrieve his jacket. "Four people are dead, John. There's no time to talk to the police."

"Then why are you talking to me?"

Sherlock paused. He looked at the mantel and then looked at John. "Mrs. Hudson took my skull."

John smiled. "So, I'm filling in for your skull?"

"Don't worry you're doing fine," said Sherlock carelessly. He pulled on his greatcoat and then looked at John seriously. "You're my assistant now, John. It's all around more helpful if you know what I know. Although, if you're unhappy with this arrangement, I can certainly find –"

John stood up. "No, it's fine," he said. "It's all fine."

Sherlock nodded. "Excellent. Let's go, then."

John blinked. "Go where?"

"Out," replied Sherlock.

John studied him. "Sally Donovan told me you get off on this. Any truth in that?"

Sherlock waved his hand impatiently. "And I said "dangerous" and here you are," he answered. "Are you coming or not?"

Without waiting for an answer he turned and descended the stairs. Behind him he heard John curse and then his slow light steps on the landing.

SH-SH-SH

"Where are we going?" asked John as they headed out into the night.

"Northumberland Street's not far from here," responded Sherlock. "A five minute walk at most."

Sherlock walked quickly. John had to ignore his limp and the slight twinge in his leg to keep up. "Do you really think the murderer will be stupid enough to show up?"

Sherlock huffed a laugh. "No. I think he'll be _brilliant _enough to show up. I love the brilliant ones. They're always so eager to get caught."

"Why is that?" asked John.

"Appreciation! Applause! At long last the spotlight. That's the frailty of genius, John: it needs an audience."

"Hmmm," hummed John. He kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock but the detective seemed oblivious (_seemed _oblivious. He probably wasn't). Suddenly Sherlock's startled pride at John's compliments made perfect sense.

Sherlock spun in a slow circle, his arms wide and gesturing. "This is his hunting ground, right here in the heart of the city. Now that we know his victims were abducted, that changes everything. Because all of his victims disappeared from busy streets, crowded places, but nobody saw them go."

John watched as Sherlock raised his hands to either side of his face. For all that he was standing on a public road, he might as well have been completely alone.

"Nobody saw them go," Sherlock repeated. "Now think. Who do we trust, even though we don't know them? Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?"

John paused. Up until this point, he had never quite thought of a serial killer in such a way. He had seen men senselessly kill each other in war, but he had never stopped to consider that somewhere in the world, somebody did it for fun. Hunted people. He gazed at Sherlock with a new, tentative light in his eyes. "I don't know, Sherlock. Who?"

Sherlock shot him a considering glance. But then he smiled. "Haven't the faintest. Hungry?"

Without waiting for John to answer he strode quickly away, and John once again had to hurry to catch up. They entered a small restaurant called Angelo's, and Sherlock seemed to personally know the young waiter at the door, who showed them to a reserved booth right in the front window. Sherlock slid onto the bench by the wall after removing his coat, and John hesitated only briefly before he scooted in on the bench in the window. He never liked putting his back to a crowd. All those people right outside, and they could see him though he couldn't see them.

"Alright?" asked Sherlock.

John was surprised to see that Sherlock was looking right at him. He removed his coat and tried to make himself appear as unaffected as possible. "Fine," he said.

Those pale, slanting eyes really saw too much. Sherlock looked as if he was mere seconds away from an "Ah!" moment, but luckily John was saved by the appearance of a large man who seemed pleased to see Sherlock. They shook hands and everything.

"John, this is Angelo."

John nodded and listened in amusement to the story of how Sherlock had saved Angelo's life by proving he had simply committed a break-in, not a murder.

"Anything off the menu you want, it's free!" boomed Angelo pleasantly. "On the house, for you _and _your date!"

John blinked. "Oh, um," he stammered, glancing at Sherlock, who had his hands steepled under his chin and was looking at John in a way that he thought probably wasn't meant to make him uncomfortable, but that certainly was doing so. "I'm not his date."

He might as well have not said it for all that Angelo heard him.

"I'll bring a candle for the table, too, more romantic."

John cleared his throat. "Not his date."

But a candle appeared anyway, and Angelo really looked very satisfied with the whole thing, and Sherlock was still staring at him.

_Oh, screw it. _

"Thanks," said John.

"Eat if you want to," said Sherlock. His long fingers splayed on a menu and slid it closer to John. "We might have a while to wait."

"For what?" asked John.

Sherlock nodded toward the window. "Twenty-two Northumberland Street."

John twisted around and looked out at the street. "Do you really think he'll show up?"

But Sherlock didn't answer. He seemed entirely focused on the goings on outside the window.

John fiddled with the menu without really looking at it. "Your brother seemed a bit dramatic."

Sherlock snorted.

John hid a smile behind his hand. "Right. Well, he told me he's the closest thing to a friend you've got."

Sherlock finally looked at him. "Mycroft is not my friend."

John held up a hand peacefully. He was thinking about Sally Donovan, and her claim that Sherlock Holmes had no one, no one in his life to consider a friend. "Have you got any others? Friends, I mean."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Does it matter?" Without giving John a chance to answer he continued. "Perhaps normal people have friends and acquaintances, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers, whatever they want. But I have never been normal, John."

He said it pointedly, as if to remind John that his own friends list was alarmingly thin.

"So you haven't got a girlfriend, then?"

And blast it all, why was that the question that had to come out of his mouth? Now Sherlock was looking at him again.

"Girlfriend?" repeated Sherlock slowly. "No. Not really my area."

John kept his face expressionless. "Right. Boyfriend, then?"

And now he really didn't like the way Sherlock was staring at him with those unforgivably perfect eyes, because it made him remember those long fingers clasped around his face.

"No," said Sherlock. "I consider myself married to my work." He seemed to hesitate. "While I do feel flattered by the occasional attempt at interest, I have not yet felt inclined to –"

"Sherlock," interrupted John, and the other man quit babbling. "I'm just saying, it's _all _fine."

Sherlock's eyes flickered rapidly across John's face for a moment before he nodded and looked back out the window. John breathed out noiselessly.

"John," said Sherlock, and the low quiet intensity of his voice made John look up at once. "Look."

John looked out the window. "What am I meant to be seeing?"

"Taxi," said Sherlock.

"It's just idling there," said John once he'd spotted it. "Why is it idling?"

Sherlock didn't answer. He was muttering to himself and rapping his fingers very quickly on the tabletop. "Oh, a taxi, that's clever. Is it clever? _Why _is it clever?"

"That's him?" asked John quietly, even though the taxi was far away and outside and John knew he couldn't be overheard.

"Don't stare," snapped Sherlock.

"You told me to look!"

"We can't both look!"

Sherlock stood up in a flurry and flung his coat back around his shoulders. He wrapped his blue scarf around his neck en route to the door. "Hurry, John!" he called as he disappeared outside.

John bolted to his feet and pulled on his own jacket and threw himself through the door after Sherlock, who stood for a moment staring at the taxi before stepping out into traffic.

"Sherlock!" yelled John.

But the detective didn't listen. He weaved between cars and then slid across the bonnet of one that didn't quite stop in time. Without thinking John sprinted after him, using his strong right hand to leap over the bonnet of the car.

"Sorry!" he said to the driver as he dashed after Sherlock.

Sherlock had come to a stop several yards ahead. John skidded to a halt beside him.

"Trying to get yourself killed?" he asked conversationally.

But Sherlock had his hands up on either side of his face and was muttering very quickly and quietly to himself about traffic and detours and John didn't have enough time to ask what he was doing before Sherlock said, "This way, hurry!" and took off at a run.

John followed without a thought. Sherlock was very quick, due in part to his long legs (really not fair, that) and what John perceived as an omniscient knowledge of London's streets and side alleys. John was forced to sprint once again just to keep up with Sherlock, but his old breathing habits returned quickly. He felt a rush of heady adrenaline as he followed Sherlock up and down stairs, through halls and windows, down fire escapes, and even across rooftops. The last time he'd felt so alive, he'd been overseas, performing emergency surgeries in the middle of open warfare. _When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, _Mycroft had said, _you see the battlefield_.

And John was happy to be back.

They ran for what felt like a long time, though John knew it was only minutes. When they caught the taxi, John wasn't surprised. What was surprising, however, was the completely average American man sitting in the backseat, just arrived from LA, and obviously not the murderer they were looking for. After offhandedly welcoming the man to London, Sherlock walked rapidly away, leaving John to follow him.

"What's that?" asked John when he caught up to Sherlock and noticed him fiddling with something.

Sherlock handed over an identification card. "Detective Inspector Lestrade," read John.

"I pickpocket him when he's annoying," said Sherlock absently.

"Of course," said John.

"Keep that one," said Sherlock. "I've got plenty of others."

John looked at the ID and felt something working in his throat. He laughed quietly, shaking his head.

Sherlock glanced at him, confused. "What?"

John laughed again. "Nothing, it's nothing, just: Welcome to London."

Sherlock's eyes crinkled slightly and John watched in shock as the detective actually giggled. The sight and sound of his laughter made John's stomach feel warm, and he once again recalled those hands on his face. He couldn't help himself from laughing along.

"Got your breath back?" asked Sherlock after a moment, and John saw that he was staring at the taxi, which had stopped by actual policemen. The American was pointing at them.

"Never lost it," said John, and took off at a run after Sherlock.

SH-SH-SH

They made it to the flat out of breath and sweating, and Sherlock felt high on adrenaline and nicotine patches and London air and the chase.

And John, who hadn't noticed that he'd left his cane at Angelo's and who looked at Sherlock in a way that no one had ever looked at him before.

They stood panting and laughing in the hall at the foot of the stairs, and Sherlock couldn't remember the last time a case had thrilled him this much. And as he stood there laughing (laughter, such a strange, unnecessary bodily function, symbolic of happiness, joy, etc. and previously considered a waste of time) he wasn't sure if it was because it was a _serial killer _or if it was because it was _John_.

Their shoulders bumped as they stood there breathlessly, a quick static brush that had Sherlock feeling warm and frozen simultaneously.

"That was the most ridiculous things I've ever done," stated John suddenly, his voice a little raw and raspy from the run.

Sherlock quirked a quick smile at him. "And you invaded Afghanistan."

John grumbled good-naturedly. "What were we doing there?"

"Oh, just passing the time," said Sherlock. He narrowed his eyes and looked slyly at John. "And proving a point."

"Oh?" asked John. "What point is that?"

"You," said Sherlock, and was gratified by the widening of John's eyes and the slight hitch in his breathing. "Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock called before John could say anything. "Doctor Watson _will _be taking the room upstairs."

"Says who?" asked John.

"Says the man at the door," responded Sherlock, and right on time three quick knocks sounded.

John looked bewildered.

"Better get that," suggested Sherlock, and watched quietly as John walked to the door and spoke briefly with Angelo and took back his cane.

As John reentered the hall, looking at his cane like he'd never seen it before, a euphoric shine in his eyes, Sherlock decided that he would do just about anything, anything to keep John looking like that.

"How'd you…?" asked John quietly, standing next to Sherlock against the wall.

"I told you it was psychosomatic," Sherlock quietly replied. "You said earlier that when you met Mycroft your hands stopped shaking. When you're on the case with me you get this look like you enjoy the danger. And your profession was a medical surgeon in the army. You thrive in stressful, potentially life-threatening situations. I knew with just the right push you'd forget all about your limp."

John's head bumped back against the wall and he closed his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered, and his head turned slightly in Sherlock's direction, and Sherlock could see his quickly beating pulse on the exposed column of his throat, and it would take just a couple of inches, a quick dip of his head to taste the adrenaline on that fluttering pulse. He was sure it would be a better feeling than the drugs had ever been. He actually did begin to lower his head a bit before he realized that John's eyes had opened and that he was staring at Sherlock calmly but curiously, waiting to see what Sherlock would do next.

Sherlock's body moved away from the wall without his permission and he stood in front of John and raised his left hand to the wall next to John's head and with his other hand took hold of the (now useless) cane and leaned it against the bannister and then paused a moment to see if John would stop him but John hadn't moved and appeared to not even be breathing so Sherlock lowered his head and shook dark curls out of his eyes and watched as John's pupils swallowed any remaining color and

"Sherlock! What have you done?"

He pushed away from the wall and from John and looked at his landlady. "Mrs. Hudson?" he asked.

"Upstairs," she said, and Sherlock didn't wait to hear more.

He bounded up the stairs three at a time and heard John close behind him and flung open the door to their flat and felt the heat drain from his limbs at the sight of Lestrade and an entire team of officers ripping through his things.

Lestrade looked up and smiled. "Hello, Sherlock."


	3. Chapter 3

Hello all! Here is the last part of "A Study in Human Nature." Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed and stuck with it despite the Americanisms and such. It makes my day to get your reviews. Hope you like this last part and please let me know what you think.

Once again, thanks to Ariane DeVere for the transcripts! They are absolutely amazing!

Warnings and Disclaimer: Don't own. Bummer. Also, there's kissing in this chapter.

**A Study in Human Nature**

**Part 3**

Sherlock didn't even feel himself storm over to Lestrade. "What are you doing?" he asked quietly, angrily.

Lestrade looked at him calmly, so calmly that Sherlock felt himself grow angrier. "Well, I knew you'd find the case. I'm not stupid."

"You can't just break into my flat," Sherlock hissed.

"And you can't withhold evidence," Lestrade snapped right back. "Besides, I didn't break in."

Sherlock breathed in quickly through his nose and held it there. "Then what do you call this?"

Lestrade looked around innocently. His officers were tearing the flat apart. "It's a drugs bust."

The breath escaped Sherlock's lungs in an angry huff but then John was suddenly by his side, calm and steady, hands on hips, staring at Lestrade.

"A drugs bust?" he asked.

Sherlock turned toward him very quickly. "John," he murmured in warning.

But John just glanced at him and then turned back to Lestrade. "On what grounds?" he asked, very calmly.

"John," Sherlock said, a bit louder, but John ignored him.

Sally Donovan came strolling out of the kitchen. She had a nasty, malicious smile on her face. "Hasn't he told you?" Her eyes moved over Sherlock's face before she leaned toward John and whispered conspiratorially, "He's a junkie."

Luckily, John had the presence of mind not to look at him. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh," he said. "Sherlock, why don't you show the Detective Inspector your arm."

He said it so casually, so off-handedly, that Sherlock complied. He pulled back his sleeve a tad harsher than he should have and revealed the three nicotine patches.

"I don't even smoke," he said, though he would have done nearly anything at that moment for a cigarette. "I'm not your sniffer dog!"

"No, you're not," agreed Lestrade. "But Anderson is."

Sherlock whirled toward the kitchen. Anderson was standing next to Donovan, grinning.

"What are _you _doing here on a drugs bust?" Sherlock spat.

"Oh, I volunteered," he said, sneering.

Sherlock turned away and felt, through sensory input to the pain receptors in his brain, that he was biting his lip too hard. Perhaps hard enough to draw blood. John was looking at him with a light hint of concern in his eyes and Sherlock wished that he could reach out and grab the Browning that was hiding behind John's trousers and jumper because he really wanted to _shoot _something and it was just bloody unfair that mere minutes ago he had been about to _kiss _John Watson (kissing: requires thirty-four facial muscles, one-hundred and twelve postural muscles, the most important muscle involved being the _orbicularis oris _which is used to pucker the lips) and of course Lestrade and the rest of his team had to come along and ruin all of it and Sherlock was almost positive that traced back far enough it would somehow even originate with Mycroft.

"Are these human eyes?"

Sherlock spun around again and glared at Donovan. "Put those back!"

She looked startled, standing there holding his jar of eyes. "But they were in the microwave."

Sherlock was sure his facial features had contorted into an expression of disbelief at her stupidity. "They're an _experiment_," he explained slowly.

Lestrade stood up. "Keep looking guys," he said, and Donovan and Anderson turned away. More quietly, and to Sherlock alone, he said, "Or you can help us properly and I'll stand them down."

Sherlock ran his hands through his hair. "This is childish."

Lestrade shrugged. "I'm dealing with a child. Sherlock, this is our case. I've let you in on it but you can't, you _cannot _go running off on your own. Is that clear?"

"So what, then?" hissed Sherlock, gesturing angrily. "You set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?"

For just a moment, as Lestrade looked at him, there was something bordering sadness and pity in his eyes. "It stops being pretend if they find anything."

Sherlock closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. "I am clean," he said a moment later, loudly.

Lestrade nodded. "I know, I believe you," he said. "But is your flat? All of it?"

And then, quite suddenly and for the second time that night, John inserted himself into the conversation.

"Actually," he said, appearing out of nowhere at Sherlock's side. "It is. You see, I live here too. In the room upstairs. Sherlock and I are flatmates as well as colleagues. When I moved in Mrs. Hudson and I combed the place from top to bottom, dusting and cleaning and all that. You won't find any drugs. There's nothing here to find."

Lestrade blinked. Sherlock wasn't sure what sort of difference it made to Lestrade that this was John's flat too, but it apparently made a difference. The DI's posture relaxed and he smiled lightly at Sherlock. "You see? We can work together here. Look, we've even found Rachel."

Sherlock's eyes brightened. "Who is she?"

Lestrade turned and waved an arm at the officers pulling apart the flat. Sherlock glanced at John, who was looking at him already, and in the briefest of moments their eyes spoke what their voices could not. _John, I – Don't mention it – No, no really. That was… good – You're welcome, Sherlock. _

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter," explained Lestrade, turning back to them.

Sherlock frowned. "Her daughter? Why would she write her daughter's name?"

Anderson strutted back into the room. "Never mind that. We found the case." He pointed to the case that Sherlock had left sitting out before he and John went to Angelo's. "According to _someone_, we would find the case in the hands of the murderer and here we found it in the possession of our favorite psychopath."

Sherlock's lip curled as he looked over at Anderson. "I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research." He turned back to Lestrade. "Someone needs to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her."

"She's dead," said Lestrade.

Sherlock clapped his hands together. "Excellent."

Several officers shot him appalled glances but Sherlock could hardly bring himself to care. He did have time to notice that John didn't look entirely surprised before Lestrade began shaking his head and spoke before Sherlock had a chance to go on.

"I know what you're thinking," said Lestrade, "but there isn't any connection. Rachel died fourteen years ago. She was Jennifer Wilson's stillborn daughter."

Sherlock's entire body stilled. "No that's… that's not right. That can't be right. Why would she do that? Why?"

Anderson snorted. "Why would she think of her daughter in her dying moments? Yes – sociopath. I can see it."

Sherlock turned on him with a snarl. "She didn't _think _about her daughter. She scratched her name into the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It would have taken effort. It would have hurt." He began to pace, hardly aware that he was doing it.

"Sherlock," said John, watching him as he paced. "The poison is self-administered. Perhaps the murderer, I don't know, talks to his victims first? Maybe he used Jennifer's daughter against her somehow."

Sherlock stopped in front of John. "Perhaps," he conceded. "But that was ages ago. Why would she still be upset?"

The flat fell completely silent. It took Sherlock a moment to realize that everyone was staring at him with something close to horror in their eyes. He looked at John. "Not good?" he asked.

John smiled tightly. "_Bit _not good."

Sherlock brought his hands up to his face and looked at John through his fingers. He took a step closer to him, blocking out everyone else in the flat, and dropped his hands. "Yes, but if you were dying, if you were about to be murdered… in your last few seconds, what would you say?"

"'Please, God, let me live.'"

"Oh, use your imagination!"

John sighed. "I don't have to."

Sherlock's eyes flickered over John's shoulder. He knew there was an old wound there and when he met John's eyes again he didn't know what to say. He hesitated. And then John saved him.

"What was Jennifer Wilson trying to tell us?" John asked.

"What indeed," said Sherlock.

He didn't take his eyes off of John even as Donovan and Anderson began talking at once about Rachel, and Lestrade tried to quiet them, and Mrs. Hudson came up the stairs asking about a taxi. There was too much information and too much noise and too many things to see and Sherlock felt a sharp spike of pain at his temple as the sounds washed over him and he finally looked away from John and brought his hands up to his hair.

"Shut up!" he roared and the flat fell silent. "Everybody shut up! Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe. I'm trying to think. Anderson, face the other way. You're putting me off."

Outrage from Anderson and admonishment from Lestrade but Sherlock wasn't paying attention. He was vaguely aware of yelling at Mrs. Hudson but it barely scratched the surface of his consciousness. He stared at John as if the secret to Jennifer Wilson and Rachel was hidden in his eyes that were now blue now brown now green. John looked back calmly. Why would she scratch Rachel in the floor? Why would she do it? She was clever, Jennifer Wilson. She must have known she was dying. She must have known too that her death was the fourth in a string of serial suicides. She would have seen the other cases in the papers. She knew the police would find her and she knew they would see the name and she was trying to tell them something even in death. What was she trying to tell them?

Sherlock stared at John and quit breathing. "Oh," he said after a moment, his breath leaving his body in a murmur. "Ah, she was clever. She was cleverer than you lot and she's dead!"

Sherlock paced across the room, reveling in a mystery that was solved. "She didn't lose her phone. She planted it on the murderer!"

Lestrade blinked. "Okay. But how?"

Sherlock did a double take. "Wha…? What do you mean 'how'?"

Lestrade simply shrugged.

"Rachel," said Sherlock in semi-disbelief. "Don't you see? Rachel!"

They all looked so blank. So so so so blank.

"Look at you lot," said Sherlock in wonder, staring around from face to face. "You're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing. Rachel is not a name."

"It's a password," said a voice, and Sherlock looked up to see John standing by Jennifer Wilson's case, reading the label.

Sherlock felt something hot and glorious flare in his stomach as he smiled and pointed at John. He sat down at the desk where his computer notebook was sitting. "Quickly, John," he said, and John read him Jennifer Wilson's e-mail address while everyone looked between them, baffled. "Her smartphone is e-mail enabled," continued Sherlock as he typed the address into Mephone's user name box. "Her e-mail address is the user name and her password is…"

"Rachel," finished John, coming to stand beside him.

"Thank _God _I don't have to explain this to all of you," said Sherlock as he waited for the webpage to load. "Come on. Come on come on come on!"

"So what?" said Anderson from the kitchen. "We'll be able to read her messages."

"Anderson," said Sherlock exasperatedly. "Don't talk out loud. You lower the I.Q. of the whole street. We can do much more than check her e-mail. It's a smartphone, it's got GPS, which means if you lose it you can locate it online. She's leading us directly to the man who killed her."

"Unless he got rid of it," said Lestrade.

John shook his head. "We know he didn't." He glanced over at the DI. "We texted him earlier, and he called back."

Sherlock jumped up and began pacing as the computer tried to locate Jennifer Wilson's mobile through GPS. "We won't have long before the phone dies," he said to no one in particular before turning toward Lestrade. "This is going to be big, Lestrade. We'll need cars and helicopters and – "

"Sherlock," interrupted Mrs. Hudson. "Sherlock, this taxi driver, he –"

Sherlock groaned in frustration. "Mrs. Hudson, isn't it time for your evening soothers?"

"Sherlock."

John's voice was quiet and lilting, but it cut through the quicksilver chaos of Sherlock's mind like the drugs used to and he stilled immediately. His eyes found John and he knew immediately by his stance (tense, flexed arms and thighs, as if about to spring into action) and his face (worried, frown lines, eyebrows drawn together) that something was not right.

"John?" he asked.

"The phone is here, Sherlock," he said, pointing at the computer. "In two two one B."

Sherlock reached the computer and John in two strides and bent to look at the screen. "Here?" he asked. "No that can't be right. How could I have missed it? Me?"

He kept talking. Lestrade ordered everyone to search for a mobile phone. But Sherlock's eyes darted up to John's and then over to where Mrs. Hudson was wringing her hands by the door, an elderly gent in a jumper vest behind her. He was wearing an identification card around his neck that licensed him as a London cabbie. Sherlock noted the exact moment – by the slight widening of John's eyes – that the doctor figured it out.

_Who do we trust, even though we don't know them?_

_Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? _

_Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?_

Taxi drivers.

The man behind Mrs. Hudson pulled a pink phone out of his pocket and pressed a few keys. A moment later, Sherlock received a text. The man turned away and headed back down the stairs. Sherlock checked his phone.

_COME WITH ME._

Everyone in the flat was busy searching for the missing mobile. The only one paying attention was John. Sherlock showed John the text. John looked from him to his mobile and back again. He minutely shook his head. Sherlock shrugged as if to say, _I have to. I have to know. _

They had a silent conversation, the two of them, there in the busyness of the flat. And when Sherlock walked out without saying a word, no one even noticed him go. No one but John.

SH-SH-SH

John knew he didn't have much time. He didn't think that Sherlock actually wanted to die, but he did know that his burning curiosity, his desire to know _how _the killer cabbie had made those people commit suicide, would be too much. Sherlock would talk to him. The taxi driver would try to convince Sherlock to kill himself. And John was running short on time. He had to get Lestrade and the others out of here.

He glanced around the flat and pursed his lips. Anderson was still tearing apart the kitchen. Lestrade was pacing, telling everyone else to look for the missing mobile. Donovan was standing close by looking murderous.

And then John knew what he needed to do. If he created just enough discord in the ranks, the problem would likely take care of itself. He took his own phone in hand and dialed the number for Jennifer Wilson's mobile. He glanced at Donovan. "Sherlock's gone. He just got into a cab and drove away."

Her lip curled up at the corner. "I told you he does that."

Lestrade stopped pacing and looked over.

John lifted the phone away from his ear. "I tried ringing Jennifer Wilson's mobile again, but no one answered."

Lestrade appeared puzzled. "Well, if no one has answered then it isn't here," he said.

Donovan snorted loudly and crossed her arms under her chest. "This is just a waste of time. A waste of all of our time."

For a long, agonizing moment, Lestrade and Donovan glared at one another. Finally, Lestrade nodded. "Alright. We're done here!" he said loudly, and the rest of his team stopped searching. They were all out of the flat within twenty minutes. Lestrade was the last to leave. He stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at John before going down.

"Why'd he do it, Doctor Watson?" he asked. "Why'd he have to leave?"

John half-smiled and shrugged. "You know him better than I do."

Lestrade laughed hollowly. "I've known Sherlock Holmes for five years and no, I don't."

"Why do you put up with him, then?" asked John.

"Because I'm desperate, that's why," answered Lestrade with a slightly more genuine, though no less sad, smile. "And because Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day, if we're very, very lucky, he might even be a _good _one."

As soon as he was out the door, John turned back to the GPS tracker that was attempting to locate Jennifer Wilson's mobile. John knew that the taxi driver had it, and Sherlock was with the taxi driver. If he found the phone, he would find Sherlock. It took several minutes, but finally the tracker started beeping, and John scooped up the notebook and took it with him as he dashed downstairs and out of the flat. He hailed the first cab he saw and jumped in.

"Roland-Kerr College, please," he told the driver, who looked at him in the mirror.

"A little late for that, isn't it?"

John smiled warmly. "My brother is on the janitorial staff there. I told him I would meet him so we can go out for his birthday dinner tonight."

The taxi driver probably hadn't actually cared why John was going to Roland-Kerr so late at night, but John could tell by the relaxing of his eyes that the reason given was sufficient. The rest of the ride passed in silence. John knew that it didn't take a long time, but every second, every minute seemed to pass in slow motion. Time crawled.

Eventually they made it. There were two identical buildings side by side. John paid the taxi driver, told him he wouldn't need a return ride, and ran for the building on the right. The GPS map was precise, but not _that _precise. He had to move. The front doors were open. The building was silent and empty. John ran through the corridors, checking doors and windows.

"Sherlock!" he yelled as he ran.

His own echoing voice was his only answer.

He ran, his footsteps loud in the silence, and tried every door as he ran. When he finally found an unlocked door, the force of his weight against it sent him reeling into the empty classroom. He caught himself from falling by grabbing a table and when he steadied himself and looked up, he had a perfect view out the window of the building across the courtyard and into a classroom that was identical to the one he was currently standing in.

Sherlock was in the other classroom, next to an elderly man who looked completely average in every way. Except that both of them were holding something, something small since John couldn't quite see it from this distance. Something small that they were both raising toward their mouths.

"SHERLOCK!" John screamed, because in that moment he understood.

There were two pills. And the murderer took one as well. It was all chance. And Sherlock wouldn't be able to resist.

John watched as the pill moved slowly closer and closer toward Sherlock's bowed lips. He waited, waited until he thought that Sherlock's life was actually in danger, and then he took his Browning from the back of his trousers, aimed through the window, released the safety, and fired. The taxi driver went down immediately. John wasn't surprised. He had aimed for his heart. John dropped to the floor as Sherlock spun around, looking through the window for the shooter. He crawled out of the classroom, dialing Scotland Yard as he went.

"I need to speak to Detective Inspector Lestrade, please," John said, as calmly as he could. "It's an emergency."

"Who's phoning?" asked the woman on the other end of the line.

"Doctor John Watson."

John had made it outside by the time he finally got Lestrade on the phone.

"Sherlock's at Roland-Kerr College," he told the Detective Inspector. "The GPS tracker located the phone. I'm positive that the murderer is there with him. I'm on my way now."

"Okay," said Lestrade. "I'm on my way out the door. I'll bring the whole team. Don't do anything stupid, John."

"See you soon," said John, and disconnected the call.

The police were really quite quick when they needed to be. In no time at all Lestrade had arrived, followed by a fleet of officers and an ambulance. John knew that last one wouldn't matter so much. He would be shocked if they found the cabbie still alive. His aim had been to kill.

John watched closely as Lestrade and a couple of other officers retrieved Sherlock from the building, while still more officers flew in to roll out the dead man. Sherlock looked fine. No worse than usual. Tall and pale with his coat and his scarf and his dark shock of hair. His face looked particularly angular in the misty light caused by the police car headlights. His cheekbones were dark slashes of shadow beneath pale, otherworldly eyes. But he was alive. Lestrade led him to the back of the ambulance where a medic placed an orange blanket around his shoulders. For a moment Sherlock didn't notice. His long fingers pulled absently at the corners of the blanket. Then he realized what it was and took it off, looked at it strangely and set it aside. Less than a minute later it was replaced by another orange blanket.

John swallowed his laughter and put a hand to his lips.

"Hello, Doctor Watson," said a voice behind him, and John turned.

"Sally," he said, and his voice emerged too fast, the way a panicking, nervous man would speak. It was what Donovan expected to hear. "What's happened? Is Sherlock alright?"

She began to explain about the taxi driver and the two pills. John nodded and murmured and gasped in all the right places, and even exclaimed, "But who? Did you catch him?" when she got to the bit about the mysterious shooter from the other building. He kept an eye on Sherlock as she spoke, watched when Lestrade started talking to him, watched as Sherlock began to deduce who the shooter might have been. Sherlock's eyes shot through the crowd, looking for no one in particular, but froze when they reached John. They maintained eye contact for less than two seconds and in a minute more Sherlock was shrugging off yet another orange blanket and Lestrade, waving him away, and making his way quickly toward John.

John turned to thank Sally for her explanation, only to see that she'd gone.

Sherlock lifted the police tape and stood in front of John, tall and thin and implacable. John was only just beginning to grasp the beauty of Sherlock's mind. He was sure there was much still to learn. But what he understood, as Sherlock stood there looking at him, was that Sherlock's undivided, genuine, _full _attention and focus was a thing so beautiful it actually made John's stomach clench. Sherlock looked at him as if there was no one else to look at. As if he could glance away, see all of these people around them, and still really be looking at no one but John.

"Um," said John suddenly, because he was sure he might burst into flames under those eyes. "Sergeant Donovan's just been explaining everything to me. Two pills, then. Dreadful business. Truly dreadful."

Sherlock just looked at him. "Good shot."

He hadn't actually thought he'd be able to hide anything from Sherlock. Of course he hadn't. But it was fun to try. "Yes," he said. "Yes, must've been, through that window."

Sherlock's lips quirked. "Well, _you'd _know."

John finally cracked a smile and shrugged helplessly, as if to say, _you didn't leave me much choice. _

"Need to get the powder burns off your fingers," Sherlock murmured, briefly taking John's hands in his own and looking at them. "I don't imagine you'd go to prison, but let's avoid the court case, shall we?"

John was still smiling. That seemed to bother Sherlock more than anything.

"Are you all right?"

John blinked. "Yes, of course I'm all right."

"Well you have just killed a man," said Sherlock.

John blinked again. "Yes. I suppose that's true, isn't it?"

Sherlock was watching him very carefully. Too carefully.

"But he wasn't a very nice man, was he?" asked John, and he was relieved to see that this put Sherlock more at ease.

"No," Sherlock agreed. "He wasn't really, was he?"

"And frankly a bloody awful cabbie," said John, and was gratified when Sherlock smiled. Actually smiled. And then _chuckled._

"That's true," Sherlock said. "He was a bad cabbie. You should've seen the route he took to get us here."

The giggles burst out of John before he could stop them, and then part of his brain was euphoric, another part, the clinical, calm, controlled part, was analyzing his body for signs of shock. Was uncontrollable giggling after a traumatic event a sign of shock?

But John knew he wasn't in shock. Sherlock just made him… giddy. Like he was a boy again. Not a washed out twenty-eight year old war veteran.

Donovan looked at them strangely as they passed back under the police tape to escape the crime scene. John apologized hastily, and even Sherlock threw her a quick and half-convincing "Sorry."

Once they were a good distance away, John glanced up at Sherlock. "You were going to take that damned pill, weren't you?"

"Course I wasn't," said Sherlock instantly. "Biding my time. Knew you'd turn up."

"No you didn't," said John. "This is how you get your kicks, isn't it? Risking your life to prove that you're clever."

Sherlock looked down at him. "Why would I do that?"

John smiled fondly. "Because you're an idiot."

Sherlock glanced away and then back again, the smile on his lips unmistakable now. "Hungry?" he asked.

"Starving," said John.

"There's a good Chinese open 'til two down the end of Baker Street. You can always tell a good Chinese by the bottom third of the door handle."

"That's ridiculous," said John. "You cannot."

"Yes," said Sherlock as he waved his hands animatedly. "I can. I'll show you. It's really quite simple. Boring, almost."

John laughed.

"I can also predict the fortune cookies."

John tried to stop laughing. "No, you can't."

"Almost can."

It was pointless arguing with him. And honestly, John wouldn't have been surprised if he _could _predict the fortunes.

SH-SH-SH

Sherlock did try to guess John's fortune based off his facial and bodily reactions alone, but all he had to go on was a slight tightening around his eyes, raised eyebrows, and the thinning of his mouth. Not a good fortune, then. Probably something that reminded him of his alcoholic sister or his time in Iraq. The appropriate thing to do here would be to let it go, to not guess the fortune, to let John have his moment and bring up a different topic of conversation. But Sherlock's curiosity had never been so lenient. It ate away at him in a way that was almost painful, like a scavenger over a carcass.

"It's about your past," he said quietly, only half of his own volition.

John's head was lowered but he peeked up quickly, a dark glance through light eyelashes. A small smile curled around his lips as he brought his head up fully, and he huffed slightly as he stared at Sherlock. "You really are amazing," he said, and handed the little slip of paper across the table.

Sherlock's fingers took it, again without his permission, and he didn't intend to look down, he intended John to have his privacy, but his eyes darted over the words anyway.

'Your Past Is Only What You Make Of It.'

"Hmmm," said Sherlock as he released the paper. It fluttered above the table for a moment and then landed gently between them.

"You finished?" asked John, nodding toward his plate.

"Yes," said Sherlock without even looking down.

They dropped a handful of notes on the table and left, walking side by side down a very quiet and dark Baker Street.

"I need a taxi," said John, and Sherlock saw the slight shiver go through him at those words.

"Why?" asked Sherlock.

"All of my things are still at the bedsit, Sherlock," said John. "I don't have any clothes or my toothbrush or anything."

Sherlock shrugged. Unconcerned. "No matter. Borrow some of my clothes tonight. You can go in the morning to pack up."

John looked him up and down and Sherlock resisted the urge to shiver himself. "I definitely won't fit into any of your clothes," said John, grudgingly.

"You will in the ones from my childhood," said Sherlock simply.

John reached over and shoved him, hard, directly in the side, and Sherlock surely had underestimated the force in his wiry, thin arms because he sidestepped and almost tripped and caught himself only by spinning in a little circle and then looking at John with a raised eyebrow as if he had meant to do all of that anyway.

John was smiling. "Just this once," he said, and yawned widely. "I'm knackered."

Two two one B was still and silent, and John and Sherlock moved up the stairs quietly, so as not to wake Mrs. Hudson. Their flat looked awful. Sherlock's things were strewn about and he had to contain his anger at Lestrade for doing this, for coming in and making a mockery of his home and his science and his past regrettable habits.

John touched his arm lightly.

"Tea before bed?" he asked, and then moved toward the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

Sherlock's arm felt both tingly and numb where John had touched him. His stomach felt warm but he knew his skin was cold from the night air. He took off his coat and jacket and scarf as John bustled about the kitchen, opening cupboards looking for mugs and tea and setting the kettle on the stove. Sherlock leaned against the wall and watched him and wondered at the strangeness of this, of how quickly he had come to think of this as _their _flat and how it was strange simply by not _feeling _strange.

"John," he said, quietly, and then stopped to think for a moment as John looked over. "That thing you did, with the cabbie, that was good."

"You mean killing him?" asked John, turning around fully and leveling Sherlock with a dark gaze.

"Yes," said Sherlock, simply and without wincing, because John _had _killed him, and that's all there was to it.

John nodded. "Yes, well, he was going to kill you."

And that answer was so plain, so true, that Sherlock rocked forward on the balls of his feet and felt the tingle in his arms spread down his body and into his legs. "No," he said. "No, he wasn't, I was going to –"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence," John's voice cut in, quick and harsh. "He was going to kill you, Sherlock, no two ways about it. He was playing to all of your weaknesses. Don't interrupt! Yes, you have weaknesses just like everyone else. He knew he had to get you so curious as to become careless. You were going to take that pill just to see if you were right."

"I was right," said Sherlock.

"Maybe," said John. "Maybe. But it was luck. Chance. And you could've been wrong."

Sherlock knew that John wanted something from him. John, who was small and thin and had been in a war, who had been shot in the desert (in the shoulder. The left one) and had killed a man, tonight, just to save the life of another man who he had known for little more than a day.

"I could've been wrong," Sherlock agreed, though the words tasted bad leaving his mouth and though he knew these next words would taste bad too. But he had to ask. "John. Why did you kill him? You're obviously a crack-shot. You could've hit him anywhere. But you didn't."

John crossed his arms defensively and frowned at Sherlock. "He murdered four people, Sherlock. He was about to get a fifth. And you… you're too important. If I had shot him in the arm, or the shoulder, he might have been able to convince you to take that bloody pill anyway." John shook his head angrily. "My aim was to kill. I killed him. It's over. It's done. You're alive, and for that I. Am. Not. Sorry." He shook his head again. "The past is only what you make of it," he quoted, quietly.

And Sherlock stopped breathing because he had been _wrong_, he had been convinced, he had been sure that John was thinking about his sister or his war wound when he read the fortune. But he had been thinking of the man he just killed. Of the guilt for doing it, and of the guilt for not being sorry enough. And he wondered if this was how it was going to be between them, this dance that kept Sherlock up up up on his toes because John was not normal. He was surprising. And he thought things that Sherlock couldn't guess and he was motivated by things that Sherlock couldn't understand and it was beautiful.

Sherlock moved forward silently and John watched him come.

"John," said Sherlock. "I'd like to try something, now."

John looked up at him and Sherlock leaned down, just slightly, and let his eyes flicker across John's lips.

"Like an experiment?" asked John.

"Mmmmm," hummed Sherlock.

"You don't have to ask," said John, whose eyes had fallen to Sherlock's lips as well, and that was really all Sherlock needed to hear.

He moved his hands behind John's neck and up into his blond hair and leaned down and brought their lips together. And it was different than he expected. Because Sherlock almost always attacked things, ferociously, as if to conquer with his whole body and the entirety of his mind. But now he let his lips just sort of ghost over John's, like they were asking, seeking permission, and it felt more violent than anything he had ever done. Because he couldn't breathe. And his stomach hurt.

Once, as a child, Sherlock had been punched in the stomach. It was at school, and Robbie Witherton had been making fun of him again for knowing just one too many answers. And Sherlock had never said anything to him before. But for some reason, on that particular day, he turned round and told Robbie that he was just a jealous nutter, and that it wasn't Sherlock's fault that his mother didn't love him, and that his father ignored him, and then Robbie's fist had slammed so hard into Sherlock's stomach that he fell over and his vision swam with black stars. He hadn't been able to breathe.

That was what kissing John felt like. It felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. He couldn't breathe and his lips sought something, something that he couldn't find until John opened his mouth, just slightly, and then he could breathe again. John's air became his air. John's pain became his pain. He was holding John's head too tightly, and John had curled one arm around his back and had laid the other, palm flat over his heart. And they stumbled sideways and backwards through the kitchen, bumping into the table once, until Sherlock fell heavily onto the couch and John stood over him panting and Sherlock reached up and tugged on his arm (the right one, not the left) and John fell in a tangle of arms and legs onto the couch next to Sherlock and the angle was awkward but they were impatient, much too impatient to adjust anything.

And Sherlock's mind went completely and blessedly blank. He kissed John first slow and gentle, and then hard and fast, because he needed to breathe and he needed John's air. They sat slipping kisses back and forth, exchanging breaths, like it was vital to them. The flat was quiet. The sounds were those of tongues and lips and teeth. And hands rustling clothing. And breathy, almost non-existent moans.

_This will ruin me_, was the only thought that entered Sherlock's mind.

Because he could feel himself beginning to crave John like he had craved cocaine, and then heroin, and then a cocktail of things that had made the chaos manageable. He could feel himself slipping into that space where this would become necessary and he worried that John couldn't handle it, that it would scare him away, that this side of Sherlock would be too much.

But then John bit his lip gently, and sucked lightly on his tongue, and the last of those thoughts flew away as John's hands gripped his shoulders and his hair and pulled and _oh _that was good, that was exquisite, and he didn't think anymore. Couldn't have even if he'd tried.

SH-SH-SH

When his brother and John Watson fell onto the couch in a not-so-innocent heap of limbs, Mycroft Holmes frowned, turned off the live-feed on his computer, and shut down his laptop.

"Turning in?" asked Anthea from the corner. She was sitting in a wingback chair staring at him and her BlackBerry was nowhere in sight.

"Yes," said Mycroft. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes and rubbed his temples absently. "Interesting, that soldier fellow. He could be the making of my brother – or make him worse than ever. Either way, we'll have to upgrade their surveillance status. Grade Three Active."

"Sorry, sir," said Anthea politely. "Whose status?"

She knew very well whose status. But she liked her little games, and Mycroft liked letting her play them.

He smiled. "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson."


End file.
